The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced the dedication and open house dates for the Feather River California Temple — the state’s first temple dedication in nearly 17 years.

Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the temple on Sunday, Oct. 8, in two sessions, at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The dedicatory sessions will be broadcast to all units in the Feather River California Temple district.

A public open house for this house of the Lord will begin Saturday, Aug. 19, and run through Saturday, Sept. 9, excluding Sundays.

Prior to the open house, a media day will be held Tuesday, Aug. 15. Invited guests will tour the temple from Wednesday, Aug. 16, through Friday, Aug. 18.

The announcement was published Monday, March 20, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

Additional details about the temple dedication and the open house will be announced locally as the event approaches.

The 38,000-square-foot Feather River California Temple sits on a 9-acre site at 1470 Butte House Road in Yuba City, in the heart of California’s Central Valley. A new meetinghouse and distribution center has been built next to the temple.

President Russell M. Nelson announced a new temple for Yuba City during the October 2018 general conference; the temple was later given its Feather River California name. Ground was broken for the temple on July 18, 2020.

Church leaders participate in the groundbreaking ceremony of the Feather River California Temple on Saturday, July 18, 2020.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Once dedicated, the temple will be the eighth house of the Lord in the state of California, joining seven operating temples — Los Angeles California (dedicated in 1956), Oakland California (1964), San Diego California (1993), Fresno California (2000), Redlands California (2003), Newport Beach California (2005) and Sacramento California (2006).

Construction on the Yorba Linda California Temple began in June 2022, and a temple for Modesto, California, was announced in April 2022 general conference.

California’s 10 temples are the most in any state besides Utah.

California is home to nearly 735,000 Latter-day Saints in more than 1,180 congregations.

Yuba City and the surrounding area sit in a valley about an equal distance from the Sierra Mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Two major rivers converge there — the Yuba River and the Feather River, tributaries of the Sacramento River. The rich soil is considered among the most productive in the world.

When early Church leader Sam Brannan saw the valley after leading a group of Saints from New York around Cape Horn on a ship called the Brooklyn, he stayed rather than joining Brigham Young and the other Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. Yuba City claims him as its founder.

Since then, the Church has had a strong presence in the area. One of the first stakes created in California was created in Gridley, just a half-hour north of Yuba City. The Church also built the first meetinghouse in California there in 1911.